HBO renews ‘It: Welcome to Derry’ for S2 with story set in 1935

HBO has officially renewed It: Welcome to Derry for a second season, bringing fans another chapter in the terrifying history of the fictional Maine town and the evil entity known as Pennywise.

The series, which premiered on HBO Max on October 26, 2025, serves as a prequel to the two-part It film franchise released in 2017 and 2019. Based on Stephen King’s novel It, the show explores the earlier encounters between Derry’s residents and the shape-shifting clown.

While the first season was primarily set in 1962, Season 2 will travel further back in time to 1935, during the Great Depression.

According to the season’s logline, the story will center on the Bradley Gang massacre, involving a group of bank robbers who stop in Derry to purchase ammunition but encounter an unimaginable horror. The Bradley Gang Massacre is featured as one of the historical interludes in King’s original novel.

The upcoming season will have a darker and more bleak setting, reflecting the economic hardship of the Depression era. Andy Muschietti, who helped develop the series, previously teased that the new story would explore the poverty, unemployment and social tensions of the period.

The filmmaker also noted that Derry will look very different in the second season.

The new season will be developed by the creative team behind the first chapter. Andy Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti and Jason Fuchs originally developed the series, while Brad Caleb Kane, who co-showran Season 1 with Fuchs, will serve as the sole showrunner for Season 2.

Bill Skarsgård, who reprised his role as Pennywise in the first season, has not yet been confirmed for the second season’s cast. Casting details for the new chapter have also yet to be announced.

Season 1 featured Jovan Adepo, Taylour Paige, Chris Chalk, James Remar, Stephen Rider, Madeleine Stowe and Rudy Mancuso alongside Skarsgård.